Craft Room Paint Storage

Steve gave me the best Christmas gift, something I've been wanting... no, needing.... for a long time. He built me paint storage for the craft room!

It looks so pretty with all the paints lined up. But more importantly, it takes two seconds to find the shade I need. I used to store my paints in tubs in the closet and this is a million times better. 

Before:

After:

 Before and after:

    

Moving the paints out of the closet freed up a bunch of room to store other things in there. I even have space to display some of my artwork! I can't believe how much space I gained. Thanks, Steve! You're the best.

Scraproom Makeover Reveal

This post contains affiliate links. 

After a year of cleaning, organizing, and improving the functionality, I'm finally ready to reveal my updated scraproom!

Scraproom Makeover, May 2017

First, let's look at the BEFORE (more photos here):

And now, the DURING:

At long last, the AFTER:

Those three photos were all taken from the doorway looking in. The room is 13 feet long and 10 feet wide. The door you see on the right leads into a small walk-in closet. Here is the view from the closet door looking back toward the entry door:

My desk area is located right outside that door in the hallway. My computer and scanner are there. 

This is what you see if you enter the room and look right. The Kallax bookcases here and under the window are new. The bins on top of the bookcases hold lightweight things, including tissue paper paper, foam, fabric, and foiling supplies. My favorite Everything Mary totes hang from the pegboard now. 

Here's a closer look at the area behind and to the left of the entry door. Steve built the behind-the-door shelving for me years ago and it's one of my favorite features of the room. The dimensions are listed here. My dad built the oak bookcase.

Here's a closer look at the behind-the-door shelves. I keep clipboards and folders for the various committees, site council, etc. that I'm on beneath it. 

Here's a closer look at my corkboard and washi storage. (It's growing! I'll be adding a third dowel soon.)

This is my main work table. I added the Deflecto tilt bins to hold my chipboard letters and reorganized my pegboard to be more functional. It's barely visible in the right of this photo, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE this self-setting clock. 

Check out the before photos of my closet, then marvel at how much better I'm using the space now. And everything is organized, labeled, and has a home! It's glorious.  

I am so happy with my scraproom now, but it will forever be a work in progress. I'm constantly making tweaks to improve things. There are some aesthetic changes I would like to make in the long run, including painting the ceiling fan, desk, filing cabinet, and blinds white. I'd like to move the bookcase my dad made elsewhere in the house and put something a little larger in its place. I want to replace the short floating shelves to the left of the closet with longer shelves.  

Let me know if you have any questions... or suggestions to make it even better!

My New Washi Tape Storage

Are you into washi tape? I absolutely love it. (Trevor does too.) My first six rolls of washi tape hung on one of the two pegboards in my scraproom (which you can see here). It was really convenient... until my collection of washi tape grew. Soon I had washi tape cluttering up my desktop, balanced on paper trays, and on the floor under the desk. Totally unacceptable.  

I've seen dozens of different ways to store washi tape, including vertically on a paper towel holder, lined up in drawers, thrown into baskets, organized in pencil boxes, and even displayed on a window shutter. I wanted my washi tape to be out in the open but off the flat surfaces. I wanted a storage system that was flexible in size and easily accessible.  

I happened to have a length of dowel that was just long enough to hold all my washi tape rolls. I bought some Command wall hooks (affiliate link) and stuck them above my bulletin board.

 

I organized my washi tape by color and threaded it on the dowel. I balanced the dowel on the hook and that's all there was to it!

Here's a closer look:

 

I absolutely love it! The best part is that I can leave the tapes in place and tear off whatever I need. As I collect more rolls, I can either replace the dowel with a longer one and move the sticky-back hangers outward or I can put a second washi tape hanger just like this one directly above it.

How do you store your washi tape?

Taming Gift Bows

While I absolutely LOVE my scraproom, I don't especially like that it doubles as gift wrap storage. If I ever design a zillion dollar dream home, it will have a dedicated gift wrap room. (No, I'm not kidding.) In the meantime, the gift wrap stuff will stay in my scraproom.

I have a dresser in my scraproom that holds the bulk of our gift wrap stuff. One drawer is for present bows.  

 

I should mention that I don't buy these bows. All of these were either reclaimed from presents we've received or were given to me by people who know I save and reuse them. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we put bows on most gifts that we give, the number I have no longer fits in this drawer. The extras are sitting in a basket. I really wanted to consolidate the bows into a single space. Bonus points if I could free up the drawer in the dresser.

Then I remembered that my mom had given me an empty Costco caramel corn container awhile ago. (Many of my friends and family know to give me interesting containers and other cast-offs.) I'd tried unsuccessfully to remove the label for a previous project. When the label proved way too stubborn, I put it into the craft closet, waiting for inspiration.  

 

I dug through my OLD birthday paper and found a piece that covered the label beautifully. I added velvet rickrack to trim the edges.

 

I started adding the bows, hoping they would all fit. They did! Yea! Not only did I free up a dresser drawer, but the basket is empty now too.  

 

I added letter stickers as a final touch.  

 

My bow container is now back in the craft closet, in the same spot where the empty container had been waiting for me to repurpose. Hurray! Trash to treasure!

Ask Cindy: Scraproom Tour, Part Two

Yesterday I shared some pictures of my scraproom. I am generally very happy with the organization and layout of my scraproom. The closet in my scraproom ... not so much.  

Here's the view looking in:

I know that I don't use the space in the closet as effectively as I could. The upper shelves aren't bad - I store fabric, flower arranging stuff, and other materials that I hardly ever use on the upper shelf that I can't reach. The second shelf holds my markers, Mod Podge and other specialty adhesives, brayers, and other items I use occasionally.

The lower shelves hold a hodge-podge of items: completed cards are in a tub, ribbons have their own tubs, there are rolls and sheets of contact paper, a bunch of paints, a travel iron (that I use for embossing), and a wide assortment of other craft stuff.    

As you look to the right, it's more of the same. The items are fairly well-organized, but not grouped or stacked as effectively as they could be. It's very tempting to take everything out of the closet and put it back in a more organized manner, but I'm not going to tackle that until I'm caught up with deadlines and have a large block of uninterrupted time.

I hang stuff behind the closet door. I have a clipboards, craft mats, tissue paper, an extension cord, and several of the pocket charts I used to use in my classroom.

So that's the tour! Hope you enjoyed it.  

Ask Cindy: Scraproom Tour

As someone who crafts every single day, I hear the same two questions over and over. First: "How do find time to do so much crafting?" (Here's how I 'find' time.) The second question: "What do you use as your scrap space?"  

I have a dedicated scraproom. We have a 4 bedroom house: Steve and I share the master bedroom, Trevor has a bedroom, Steve has an office, and I have a scraproom. My computer/office area is on a desk in the hallway. It is far more important to me to have a private scrap area than a private office area. I know for a fact that I would not do as much crafting as I do if I didn't have dedicated space. I'm able to leave a work-in-progress where no one will disturb it. (Neither Steve nor Trevor enter my scraproom without permission... which makes it a handy place to store presents for them as well!)  

The last time I did a thorough scraproom cleaning, I took some pictures. Here's the view of my paper storage, one of two work surfaces, and one of two pegboards.

The dresser was my old childhood dresser, which I reinforced, stripped and painted white. I added the silver hardware. The drawers hold: punches, ink pads, acrylic stamps, cross-stitch supplies (which I haven't used in eons), extra adhesives, gift bags, gift wrap, tissue paper, ribbons, and bows.  

Across the top of the dresser, I have stackable paper trays (five high, four stacks across). The two stacks on the left hold cardstock, divided by color. The two stacks on the right hold loose sheets of patterned paper. Some are organized by color and others by manufacturer. The rest of my patterned paper is stored in 12x12 plastic envelopes, which I stack on a shelf.  

You can see my childhood desk under the pegboard. It is usually piled high with pages that need scanning, or supplies that need to be put away. I tuck gifts that need wrapping under the desk.   

Directly across from the dresser is my main work table and my main pegboard. Steve framed and installed my two pegboards. I love them! I can fit so many supplies on the pegboard, and it is great how easy it is to move things around as I get new stuff.  

I tape Design Team assignments to the bottom of the pegboard. (You can see three sketch assignments in this picture.)  

Perhaps the best part of my scraproom is the shelving that Steve built to fit behind the door. The shelves are 2.5 inches deep, which is perfect for storing rubber stamps, mists, embossing powders, inks, and border punches. The entire structure is 5 ft. tall by 25 inches wide. The heights of the shelves vary from 2.25 inches to 6 inches. I absolutely love it. What was once wasted space now is now a wonderful storage solution.

Stay tuned for Part Two tomorrow!